Chasing My Chins And Other Adventures in Skin Care: The Mother of the Bride Chronicles, Part I

Some days I wish bearded women were in. Today is one of them.
I once vastly improved a chinless ex by talking him into some pretty lush whiskers.
Spotting him recently at a funeral, I noticed he's still sporting a beard forty
years later. Does his wife knows what's under there?

Meanwhile, I resemble a basset hound in a turtleneck, a
situation that is reaching crises level as my daughter's April wedding
approaches.

To paraphrase Catherine Deneuve, At some point you have to
choose between the ass and the face.Sadly, what I have are really good ankles, which haven't been a
significant lure since about 1915.

While kvetching about my falling face, I've done virtually
nothing but study possible solutions for the past thirty years. Perhaps it's
the German in me, this reluctance to Get Serious About My Skin. As if I should
be able to keep my chin up entirely through force of will.

Oh how stupid are the young. Thirty years ago I looked like
a nymph. A nymph with nearly undetectable scowl lines, what they call inverted
commas between my eyes, no doubt formed from whining about looking older.

That's when a similarly tetched girlfriend and I started a
weekly radio talk show called A New
Wrinkle, to discuss what to do about our nonexistent problems: Retin-A and
Botox and such, then cutting edge. Fortunately, or not, the station (the only
one that would host us) had such a weak signal that my husband had to sit in
the car in their parking lot to listen. We made tapes, but thankfully I no
longer have anything to play them back on.

Now I don't much care about looking older, but how old I
look is another matter. I'd rather not look any particular age at all. Here's
what I want to hear whispered at the wedding:

"How old is she, do you think?"

"I don't know, she's just ageless, isn't she...."

And so...back issues of Bazaar and Vogue and Allure are
stacked on the bathroom floor -- where occasionally I'll approach the mirror
and try something distracting with eyeliner.I read reviews of every pill, cream, and serum on MakeupAlley.com,
where followers follow everything and occasionally post something more
thoughtful and in depth than, "OMG! I can tell by the bottle that arrived
two minutes ago that this is absolutely my HG.* Four stars!"Then I compare them to the reviews on
Amazon.com.

Occasionally I'm moved to try something. Right now I'm more
moved than usual.

The issue at hand is I'm cursed with a preternaturally
youthful looking Mother of the Groom, who's just six months younger than I but
looks like -- a kid. Evidence? When a medical event recently landed me in the
hospital and she arrived at my bedside, the nurse leaned over and, I kid you
not, said: "Your daughter's here."

And you want a photo of the two of us together? Spit, spit,
as they say in Yiddish to ward off demons.

Before the wedding threat, and attendant tabs for said event
started mounting, I experimented with Botox for the scowl, but the doctor was a
little over enthusiastic, my eyelids drooped, and I looked like a sleepy cow
for three months. It was also goodbye to
Lancôme's Advanced Genefique, which I swore was doing something for the $80 or
so it cost every six months (I always wait for the free bonus gift to replenish
-- who doesn't get excited about another logo make-up bag?).

The keepers include three little purple pills a day ofNature's Bounty Hair, Skin and Nails which has 572 positive reviews on Amazon, costs
$15.49 for 250 caplets, and lets me use my fingernails as screwdrivers. I'm
also yanking hair from some unsightly locations, so I suppose it works for that
as well, and several friends thought my skin glowy enough to buy it -- and agree
with my results.

An honest four stars does go to the now ubiquitous Clarisonic
Mia, a power brush that I've used semi-regularly for more than a year. My face
has never been cleaner and smoother. Of course I wonder if the Clarisonic major,
or whatever they call it, is better... maybe Clarisonic wants to send me the
high-test model to test drive?

Then I layer on serums (layering is Very Big right now) from
the 50% off about-to-expire basket near the checkout aisle at Harris Teeter. Who
knows if they do anything. They never get a chance to work before the next possible
cheap panacea
screams, Hey there!

On top of whatever I slather on Nivea cream, which has the consistency
of Crisco, and which I'm told is all the MOG has ever used, and which some people
swear is every bit as good as Creme de la Mer.Read the "study" done a few years ago in the UK's Daily MailAs Creme de la Mer has yet to appear in the
Harris Teeter bin I have no basis for personal comparison -- are you listening
La Mer Corporate?

Right now I'm awaiting the postman, bearing a test drive of
a miracle product that's guaranteed, they say, to hoist the jaw and iron the crevices
in four minutes flat and last for at least five hours. Which is about what I'll
need to get through The Wedding, or at least through the photography
session.If it wears off too soon, I can
keep a drink in front of my face.

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About Me

A freelance writer for...years...I live with my husband (The Prince) in a too small house with an equally small patch of garden on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC where everything is in more or less perpetual disrepair. Meandering in and out is Baby (our daughter), her dog Lula, and their brand new husband, the lovely Pete. "Wrote This, Wrote That," is a holding zone for a selection of my newspaper and magazine features and photos. These are generally more informative than my blog, Who Needs Flowers/Off With Their Heads...which is peripherally about gardens.